


Life, Life, Life

by Palebluedot



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Angst, Character Study, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Meddling Leia, Post-Canon, Spoilers, is that a trope yet because it should be, the Han/Leia content isnt current because well. spoilers. but it's an important theme.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-03
Updated: 2016-01-03
Packaged: 2018-05-11 09:59:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5623258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Palebluedot/pseuds/Palebluedot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Still so relieved to see each other alive, after all this time,</i> Leia thinks with a watery smile, and she doesn't miss the way Finn's hand reaches up to tangle in Dameron's hair, all tousled and greasy from staying so long buried underneath his helmet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Life, Life, Life

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from Virginia Woolf's _Orlando_.

Living on a Resistance base, immersed in the currents of people chattering away in a multi-planetary stew of languages, storming the canteen with the same bright-burning enthusiasm with which they take to the skies in ships they call by name, you see so much of life. Laughing, planning, remembering, fighting, _grieving,_ healing, then laughing again, sometimes – it's enough to make your head spin if you stare into its center for too long, let yourself pretend to slip inside the head of even one person who brushes past you on their way to who-knows-where. 

Maybe Leia takes to spending her few spare moments out on the airfield feeling all that energy flow around her because of her attachment to the beings under her command. Or maybe she needs a distraction from the two – three now, _three_ – people she loves more than she ever knew it was possible to love, who, despite the optimistic face she shows a galaxy that's depending on one, she fears she's lost forever. One, she _knows_ will never come back to her, and that only makes it harder to hope for the other two. And oh, how she needs to hope. Maybe that's the real truth behind why she finds herself out on that tarmac again and again – watching over the everyday comings and goings of her soldiers gives her a reason to hope.

Lately, when a squadron of fighters return from their latest mission, she always carves out a few minutes to oversee their homecoming. Part of the purpose is business, she needs to take stock of the state of the X-wings, and tally up who made it back, and who's fit to fly out again. Squadron leaders will write all of that up officially, of course, but if she relies solely on reports pushed across her desk, she's no use to anyone. So when Black Squadron is scheduled to return from the molten slew of asteroids where the Hosnian System used to be, she melts into the background as much as she can, tilts her face skyward, and squints into the sun, counting the black dots roaring down to their runways. She's not alone out there, a throng of everyone from off-duty fighters to non-combatant family members to medidroids gather around the fringes of the airfield, just a toe behind the painted yellow lines, seeming to vibrate with excitement and terror.

One by one, the ships land, and the crowd breaks around Leia like a wave as people rush to the exhausted and exhilarated pilots climbing down from their cockpits. Nobody seems to notice her. A girl no older than five, black braids trailing behind her, ducks under Leia's legs on her mission to launch into her mother's outstretched arms, a group of medidroids bump her shoulders as they swarm to the smoking, straggling ruin of another lost fighter, and ah, yes, there's Finn, right on schedule. He's not yet cleared by the medidroids to train to fly out on missions himself, but he's evidently well enough to sprint across the tarmac to Poe Dameron's X-wing. They crash together in a hug that looks like it must knock the wind right out of them, but if it does, it doesn't stop them from repeating the ritual every time the pilots come home.

 _S_ _till so_ _relieved_ _to see each other_ _alive_ _,_ _after all this time_ , Leia thinks with a watery smile, and she doesn't miss the way Finn's hand reaches up to tangle in Dameron's hair, all tousled and greasy from staying so long buried underneath his helmet.

The orange and white BB unit that may have saved them all zips past Leia's ankles on a beeline to its friends, chirping and whirring excitedly as it rolls in circles around their feet. Dameron laughs at some little excited snatch of binary, claps Finn on the back, slings an arm around his shoulders and leads him back to the tail end of the ship, grabbing his toolkit with his free hand. Leia's a little confused, Dameron isn't scheduled for another mission for a few days yet, surely routine repairs can wait until after dinner, he must be starving – but then the both of them kneel behind the engine, and Dameron passes Finn a wrench and guides his hand to the bolts in the plating on the belly of the ship.

 _It's another_ _lesson_ , Leia realizes, remembering the times she's walked past Dameron teaching Finn the finer points of Pazaak and Yavinian whisky. Now, like then, Dameron moves slowly, makes all adjustments with a feather-light touch, and Finn nods along, wide-eyed and eager. Finn's such a sweet young man, so bright and brimming with goodness, Leia's glad every time she sees him that he escaped the First Order, and gladder still that he laced his fingers with Dameron's on the way out. Watching two of her own falling in love right before her eyes reminds her that they're all fighting for all the light in the galaxy, and why they might yet win.

Finn drops the wrench. Leia sees the sudden widening of Dameron's eyes from halfway across the airfield, and then thanks the Maker that she's far out of range of the spattering deluge of motor grease splashing over his face.

Dameron shoves his hands over the leak, fingers scrabbling for purchase against the slick metal, eyes screwed shut against the foul-smelling spray, while Finn yelps apologies and scrambles for tools that keep slipping away in the mess. Leia hides a chuckle behind her hand – her sense of tact tugs at her conscience, she really shouldn't be ogling at them, much less standing by laughing and offering no help, but hey, it's _funny_. Her laughter dims a shade when she realizes it's the first time she's laughed since...well. For some time.

Finn's quick, slapdash patch job saves the day, but the damage is done – Dameron's face and hands are stained black, his hair's dripping, and his soaked-through flight suit should probably just be torn up for rags. Finn somehow escaped the downpour entirely, and Dameron's gaping at him.

“Poe, I – are you _okay_?” Finn squeaks out loudly enough that half the airfield turns their heads. He reaches out to wipe off Dameron's cheek, but he only succeeds in smearing everything around worse. “I'm so sorry, I – _hey_!” His hand flies to his face where Dameron – white grin flashing – just dragged his fingers, painting long, dark streaks from his forehead to his chin. Finn dips his hand in the black puddle spreading out on the pavement, raises an eyebrow. “That's how it's gonna be, huh?”

Dameron's grin widens. “I got nothing left to lose, buddy.” And with that, he pounces.

Whooping with laughter, the two of them tumble around underneath the X-wing on a mission to get each other as dirty as humanly possible, and Leia has to turn away. Their playful, devoted fondness looks so different from the slamming doors and flying insults and burning, storming protectiveness she remembers from her own wartime love, but in the important ways, in the skin-warm, sun-bright energy that softens their smiles and lights up their eyes and charges the air between them, it's exactly the same, and her heart aches with memory.

She's about to go back to her desk and bury herself in tactics and mission assignment and casualty reports (sometimes, others' grief is easier to bear than one's own) when she hears Dameron announce “We're gonna need towels,” followed by approaching footsteps. She turns over her shoulder and sees him walking towards her, grimy, bedraggled, exhausted, and smiling like the sun.

He throws her a cheerful salute as he passes. “Morning, General.” She nods in acknowledgment, and her eye slides back to the X-wing, where Finn's propped up on his elbows, watching him go.

 _We waited too long_ , a voice that isn't her own but might as well be whispers in the back of her mind. _And look how it_ _ended._

“Commander,” she calls after him, her throat tight with purpose.

Dameron turns around. “Are we shipping out again?”

Leia rakes her eyes over his face, so eager, so _young_ , and feels her heart crack, just a little. She sucks in a breath, and shakes her head. “Dameron, do me a favor and tell that Finn kid how you feel about him before the sun goes 'nova. The First Order's not big on socializing their soldiers, so he's sure as stars not prepared to make the first move, and you should never let something this important go unsaid, especially when you're fighting a war.”

Even under all the layers of grease, she can see the beginnings of a blush. “...General?” He rubs the back of his neck, roguish grin turning bashful, and that so easily meltable bravado reminds her far too much of Han. She can't help but smile, even as her eyes prick.

“Consider it an order.”

She lingers just long enough to catch a glimpse of Dameron grappling for speech, then takes her leave. Somewhere behind her, she knows, Finn's wondering what she told Dameron, and Dameron's hoping frantically that Finn didn't hear a damn word she said. Maybe he'll tell Finn about it himself, later, once they're cleaned up and tucked away somewhere private, or maybe he'll broach the subject without ever once mentioning her. She doesn't think he'll ignore her. He doesn't seem the type to throw away good advice, and Leia's lived long enough and loved hard enough to know that her advice was worth taking. In a time where at any moment, your knees could weaken and your guts could twist inside-out with dread and grief that seems to drop from the sky like a missile, like a nightmare, the heart cannot afford to keep any secrets. 

When she reaches the bunker door, she chances a glance over her shoulder, and finds Dameron walking straight back to his ship, quest for a towel forgotten. He sits next to Finn on the tarmac, a little closer than he'd been before, and Leia's too far away now to hear what he says to him, but she's close enough to see Finn beam at him and reach out, hesitant, to take his hand.  

People die around Leia every single day, people with mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers. Friends. Lovers. Her own love died on the Starkiller, and a part of her son died right along with him, on the tip of the very same lightsaber. But sometimes, for the same reasons, love rages and charms and crashes and smiles its way into existence, and that, Leia thinks as the lock clicks behind her, if nothing else, is a kind of hope. 

**Author's Note:**

> First fic for the ship, yay! I definitely plan on writing more for these two, and these hypothetical stories will probably be more actually focused on Poe and Finn, but I just couldn't get this idea out of my head, so there ya go.
> 
> I didn't do any like, super-extensive research on how X-wings work and whatnot, so if wrenches and motor grease like, shouldn't exist here, um. Oops. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> Couldn't tell ya why I thought that a Leia POV fic necessitated referring to Poe by his surname, guess it just felt like the way things worked in the Resistance.


End file.
